


Self-Rescuing Princess

by PepperF



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Post-Season/Series 04, my take on The Big Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:39:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperF/pseuds/PepperF
Summary: Surviving an apocalypse, that's hard work. Now all Bellamy has to do is sit tight, ride out the next five years on the Ark, and go home.Should be easy, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Bethany for finding the time to beta this, despite a seriously busy schedule at the moment! :)
> 
> ETA: Now with Clarke POV!

In a way, the first few months are the easiest. There's too much to do, he's too focused on their survival to spend much time thinking—and balancing on the knife-edge between life and death is familiar, if not exactly comforting. They don't turn the normal lights on at first, with no power to spare until Raven fixes the solar panels, so they work with emergency lights and scrounged flashlights, which means that there's no real 'day' or 'night', and he mostly falls asleep when he's exhausted all other possibilities. It turns out that you can't just leave an entire space station on its own for six months without things breaking down, and that plus the damage caused during the exodus means that everything needs fixing, and everything—air, water, food, power—is critical.

It takes him a while to notice when things slow down. Raven never stops, and Monty's always busy, but once the oxygen is running smoothly, the water purifier has been connected to the ship’s systems, the algae farm is up and running, and the solar panels are (mostly) functional, they run out of urgent stuff for the rest of them to do. They've all had a grounding in basic spaceship repairs by now, even Emori and Echo, and they know how to keep the Ark ticking along. It takes a while, but he slowly winds to a halt.

Which is a problem, because it turns out that Bellamy's not very good at free time.

At first, he focuses on emergency planning—what to do if the oxygen breaks, if the artificial gravity fails, if they get hit by space debris on any part of the ship. Any and every emergency that he can think of is planned out in detail, with every variable covered and no one forgotten. Then he starts running drills, to see how quickly they can get to the rocket ship, how quickly they can get into their spacesuits, how quickly they can get the oxygen or the artificial gravity up and running. He drills them until they're perfect, until he can't shave off any more seconds, and then he drills them some more—until one surprise drill in the middle of the night, when Murphy shows up and promptly socks Bellamy in the jaw, and tells him to work out his problems during the fucking day.

It's more of a shock than actually painful, so he cuts back on the drills and starts teaching Murphy how to throw a punch.

Fighting lessons are a little more popular than endless drills. Harper is the first to join them—she's good, but she could use some practice—and then Emori. The latter is lethal in her own way, with moves stolen from a dozen different fighters, but she's never had any real lessons—and while Murphy rolls his eyes at Bellamy's sudden mother-hen instinct, at least he doesn't say anything. Echo merely observes at first, but her exasperation finally gets the better of her, and she starts showing them how to fight, Azgeda-style. Raven and Monty join in when they're not otherwise occupied. Monty doesn't see any great need for it, but he likes the exercise. Bellamy is careful not to go easy on Raven. She doesn't say anything about it, the first time he uses her bad leg against her, but she keeps coming back for more.

Gradually, slowly, they find a comfortable rhythm. He can do this. Five years. It's not forever. He'll still be in his twenties when they go back and find their people. It's just five years.

\---

The sixth year is the hardest.

\---

Somehow, he wasn't expecting Harper to be the one who comes to find him, when he doesn't get out of bed one morning. It's not that he can't, he's not sick, it's just... what's the point? It's another day on the Ark, another twenty-four hours to get through, like the two-thousand-odd days before, and like tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that... 

Raven still has hope that she can solve the landing problem, and he has faith in her, he really does believe that she'll work it out eventually—but it's a numb kind of faith, like an autonomic function. Raven is a genius; it's as simple as breathing. 

He got through five years of this with an end in mind, a goal to focus on: that after five years, the Earth would be liveable, and they could all go home. He kept himself going, kept them all going. He had a purpose. But somehow, he just can't seem to summon the energy any more.

He'll get up soon. He just needs a few more minutes.

There's a knock on his door. When he doesn't answer, it opens, and Harper sticks her head into the room.

"Hey, Harper. Something up?" he asks. That sounded normal, right?

"I'm thinking yes," she says, coming in and closing the door. Two strides take her across his room to the bed, and she sits next to him, and then shoves him with her hip. "Move over," she orders. When he shifts to accommodate her, she stretches out next to him, a little higher up in the bed, pushing and pulling until he rolls onto his side, towards her. He winds up with his face on her shoulder, their arms wrapped around each other. She smells warm and sweet, and her hand strokes gently through his hair. He closes his eyes and swallows against the unexpected sting of tears.

He hasn’t cried about their situation, not for five years. He's cried about other things—he's not sure he'll ever really stop mourning Clarke—but never about being unable to go back to the planet. He's not even sure why it matters so much to him. He spent six months on Earth, less than two percent of his life, the rest of which he's spent on the Ark. And yet he misses it, with a yearning so strong that it's making him desperate, like he might just suit up and hurl himself at the planet, let his body burn up in the atmosphere rather than stay one minute more in the silence of space. 

"I just want to go _home_." His throat closes over the words, and he's probably squeezing her too tightly, but Harper doesn't object.

She doesn't tell him that they'll get there eventually and that he needs to get a grip, or point out that they've already survived five years, and waiting a little longer won't kill them. She doesn't tell him that he's just going a little stir-crazy and he'll feel better again soon. She doesn't tell him he needs to keep himself occupied. She just says: "I know." 

It's enough to tip him over the edge. A sob catches him by surprise, and then another—and then he's gone.

There's definitely something to be said for catharsis. Harper holds him through the storm, hand running through his hair and down his back, and he's probably made them both soggy and disgusting, but they've experienced worse. 

Eventually, he dozes for a while, and when he blinks open crusty, puffy eyes, Harper has shuffled down so her head is on the pillow next to him. She's snoring softly, and he feels an overpowering wave of fondness for her, and for the others who are surviving up here with him. 

It still hurts, but the pain has dulled a little, and he knows that he can hang on, that together they can do it. It's going to take a little longer than he hoped, but someday they'll go home.

\---

It's been just over six years. Raven estimates it'll be another couple of months to work out all the bugs in her plan to get them all safely down to the planet, and he's prepared to be patient, because he's damned if they're going to survive this long only to burn up in the atmosphere, or crash and explode, or any of the other likely catastrophes. They've all learned to cope with it in their own ways, and he's confident that they can make it through.

So of course that's when an unknown spaceship lands in their hangar bay.

"Bet you wish you'd run a drill for this," says Murphy, and Bellamy glares at him because he's right, dammit. But it had honestly never crossed his mind that there might be someone else out there. Someone with transport.

The ship has controllable rocket boosters, and it's easily big enough to carry all of them. _Fuck_ , with a ship like that, the journey to Earth would take maybe twenty minutes. His mouth is dry with wanting. Six years and three weeks, and after all the work they've put into it, now home is twenty minutes away. Could it really be that easy?

If they're friendly, great. If not, he's taking that ship. 

"Prisoner transport?" says Monty, dubiously. He catches Murphy's look. "I know, I know—I'm just saying, we should be careful."

Bellamy nods, and clicks his radio. "Raven?"

"All set. I've isolated the door controls, including the hangar bay door. If need be, I can eject them out into space in a heartbeat. If they've activated the mag locks, the ship will stay put—if not, we've still got plan A."

"You are a terrifying badass," Bellamy tells her.

"Yeah, I know. Just find something fixed down to grab onto if that happens, hold on _really_ tight, and remember not to hold your breath. I've got you."

"Okay, got it."

"Heads up," says Murphy, as the hatch begins to open.

A solitary figure walks out, encased in a spacesuit, and stops to look back at the ship, as if to check their parking. They put their hands on their hips.

"Pretty big ship for just one person," observes Murphy. 

Bellamy isn't really listening. His heart is pounding suddenly, adrenaline flooding his body.

"At least we should be able to take them without much of a—Bellamy, where are you going?"

He's moving before he even knows why, his conscious mind refusing to believe what his instincts are telling him. There's a rushing in his ears, drowning out the voices that call him back.

The figure turns suddenly, and freezes at the sight of him. He picks up speed, but it feels like he's floating. Part of him wonders if this is it, if all the years have got to him at last, and he's having a complete breakdown. Because it can't be, it _can't be_. She's dead. She's dead, and he's losing his mind.

They're scrabbling with the clasps on the helmet now, and when it comes off, the first thing he registers is blonde hair. The sudden, shocked silence behind him tells him that he's not the only one seeing this, that maybe this isn't just a figment of his imagination.

She takes a wobbly step towards him, and suddenly he's there in front of her, and he doesn't know what to do with his body. It takes him a couple of tries to get his voice to work.

" _Clarke_?"

She gives a laugh, or possibly a sob, and reaches for him, and that's it, he doesn't care any more if he has lost it, because this is perfect. He wants to live forever in this moment, the one where Clarke is in his arms, definitely both laughing and crying now. He doesn't know when they sank to the floor, he doesn't know what his friends are doing, or who else might come off the ship, and he doesn't care—all he knows, all he can think about, is that Clarke is somehow impossibly alive and here. He's shaking, clinging to her so tightly that they might never pry him away. 

"What the fuck?" he finds himself breathing. His thoughts are a jumble, he can't even work out what he wants to ask first, or whether he shouldn't even bother talking, but just go with what he most wants to do. "Jesus, Clarke... what the _fuck_?"

She laughs, and wipes her face on his shoulder before she lifts her head, eyes running greedily over his face, like she's missed him as much as he's missed her. "Need a ride?"

Bellamy gives up, gives in, and kisses her.

\---

END.


	2. Clarke POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I found I still wanted to write Clarke's POV of this, so. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Bethany for the beta and encouragement, as ever!

Crouched in the undergrowth, Clarke watches as the ship unloads people, blinking into the sunlight on the reborn planet. "Welcome to Earth," she mutters under her breath.

Next to her, Madi leans a little closer, and Clarke shifts to put a comforting arm around the girl. "Are they friendly?" 

Madi's dubious tone is understandable: more than half the people from the ship are in chains, but it's not clear whether that makes them criminals or slaves. Clarke has no idea who the good guys are, or how the ones in power are going to react to the news that they're not alone.

"I don't know," she admits. "I don't want to risk making contact with them, not until we learn more about them."

The incomers are spreading out now, checking out the area, probably beginning to think about things like food and shelter for the night, but Clarke's eyes keep returning to the ship. They landed so neatly, rocket thrusters setting them down gently on the ground. The ship is maneuverable, intact... perfect.

With that many people, it shouldn't take them too long to get themselves organized. They all look healthy and strong enough, even the prisoners, with only a few children amongst them, and no elderly or wounded, which only makes her more dubious about their intentions. They might sleep in the ship at first, and it's going to be their only solid prison for a while—but it won't take them long to get set up outside, to start putting up temporary structures as a first step towards establishing a permanent base. The weather is good, heading into summer, and sleeping outside isn't hard. And although she's not sure where they came from, there's no way it was as beautiful as this little patch of Earth. Besides, they probably think they're alone. Their main worry will be keeping the prisoners caged; they won't be looking outwards.

"Madi," she says. "I've got an idea."

\---

Madi had saved Clarke, just as much as the other way around. She was tiny, filthy, and close to starvation when Clarke first found her, a couple of months after Praimfaya. She'd been living with her mother in an abandoned bunker, which had saved them from the initial wave, but only Madi's nightblood had kept her alive after the seals failed. 

Clarke nursed her back to health, held her through the nightmares, patiently coaxed the life and joy back into her eyes. It took a long while for her to notice that Madi was doing the same for her—that winning a small, uncertain smile from her let Clarke forget for a moment about the devastation of the world around them. When five years came and went with no sign of the returning ship, and when the rubble on top of the bunker entrance had been too much for Clarke to shift, Madi had given her the courage to keep going—had kept hope alive.

That said, there are times when Clarke wishes she had another adult around, to help make some of the hard decisions. Madi is smart, inventive, opinionated—but she's relied on Clarke to make the major decisions for most of her life. And for all her intelligence, she's had no one but Clarke to interact with since she was five years old, so she doesn't know what it can be like, dealing with other people. On a fundamental level, she doesn't expect people _not_ to help each other to the best of their ability. But Clarke will be risking both of their lives with this plan, so Madi gets to have a say.

"Okay. I think I can get us onto the ship, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to work out how to fly it," says Clarke. "But where do we go? It's either the bunker or the Ark. That's a ship from a mining colony, so it might have equipment on board that we can use to excavate the bunker. And we know it can go into space, and that there's enough room for all my friends. But there are some big factors that we don't know." She ticks them off on her fingers. "If there's not enough fuel, we won't be able to get into space—or maybe we'd get there but we couldn't come back. If the equipment's difficult to use, or if it takes time to dig out the bunker, they might come and fight us to get the ship back. And we don't know what we'll find when we get there, either in the bunker or on the Ark. We don't know the best bet." She doesn't have to explain the consequences if no one is alive on the Ark or in the bunker; Madi's only ten, but she understands death and loss as well as anyone.

Madi frowns thoughtfully. "Why do we have to steal their ship? Can't we just ask them to help?"

Clarke purses her lips, feeling guilty. Is this really the example she wants to set? "Well, we don't _have_ to steal it. It's going to be much harder to make friends with them if we start by stealing their stuff, so this might be a really bad idea. On the other hand, we don't know that they'd let us use it. We don't know anything about them. And once they know we want it, it would be much harder to steal. So this might be our only chance." 

She sighs and leans back in the nest they've made in the back of the rover. Madi curls up against her, without hesitation, and Clarke wraps her arms around her, rubbing one hand up and down the girl's back, like when one of them has had a nightmare. 

"I don't know, Madi. Maybe I'm being selfish. I'm putting you in danger, and for what? Maybe we should try to talk to them first."

There's silence for a while, as Clarke goes through the options in her head, over and over. It's a familiar process, and she knows that there isn't always a best option—more often than not, she's had to choose the least worst. She's started by trusting people, and she's started by not trusting people, and neither option has necessarily worked out, because life's not a story with a neat ending and a helpful moral.

"If it was just you, what would you do?" asks Madi.

Clarke hesitates, but only because the answer rises so readily to her lips that she doesn't trust the impulse. "Steal the ship and go to the Ark," she says at last, reluctantly. Because it's the truth. She probably wouldn't have waited even this long. The only thing tempering her desperation to get to her friends is her need to protect Madi.

"Then I think we should do that," says Madi, matter-of-factly. She shifts so she can look at Clarke. "We don't know what's going to happen, right?"

"Right," agrees Clarke.

Madi shrugs. "So we should just pick the one you want to do. If it doesn't work out, we'll bring the ship back. I'll go out first, and explain that we just borrowed it, and I'll apologize really, _really_ sincerely and promise we'll never do it again."

Clarke's lips twitch into a smile. "You think that'll work on them?"

"It works on you, doesn't it?"

Clarke tickles her side, making Madi squeak in protest. "I didn't realize I was raising a trickster! You're going to get along great with Murphy and Emori!"

Madi tries to squirm away, without much success. "Then maybe I'll go live with them, because this is mean!"

Clarke wraps both arms around the girl, holding her in a bear hug. "No. No way. You're mine, and I'm not letting you go."

With a sigh of contentment, Madi settles in her arms. "I guess you'll have to do, even if you worry too much," she says, and pats Clarke's arm. They cuddle in silence for a while, until Clarke thinks she's gone to sleep—but not quite. "Will Bellamy like me?" she asks, drowsily.

Clarke's eyes open, and she gazes upwards, as though she can see through the roof of the rover, through the atmosphere and the miles, to the cold and distant station that circles high above their heads. "Bellamy's going to love you," she says, with absolute confidence.

\---

It takes a few days of observing and planning, but when Clarke is as sure as possible that she won't be putting Madi's life at risk any more than she has to, execution follows swiftly. And it goes smoothly—so smoothly, in fact, that she figures something has to go wrong soon, but there's no time to think about that. If she's reading the gauge correctly, there's just about enough fuel to get them to the Ark and back, so she aims the shuttle at the sky, and breathes a silent prayer. "Put the suit on," she snaps at Madi.

"It's too big," the girl complains.

"I know, but just in case." It's the best they can do. She won't be able to move very easily, but it's their only protection if something goes catastrophically wrong.

"You have to put one on, too."

She glances back, but Madi is already struggling into an adult-sized suit. "I will. When you're ready, shuffle your way over here."

Madi's head snaps up. "I get to fly a _spaceship_?"

"Only if you get a move on."

In a few minutes, they swap, and Clarke clambers as fast as she can into her own suit, then relieves Madi at the controls. Not that Clarke has much experience piloting a shuttle—but at least when she sits in the driver's seat, her feet reach the floor.

They breach the atmosphere with remarkably little fuss, and then they're out into the blackness of space. Beside her, she can see Madi gazing around in awe. Clarke's just grateful that the emptiness around them makes this straightforward. Driving the rover is harder, although the risks are much smaller.

Almost unbelievably soon, the Ark comes into view. "It might be a bumpy landing, so strap yourself in and hold on tight," she warns Madi. It's lucky that she's got so much to do, or she's be terrified right now, because _it's been six years_ , and that's more frightening than any amount of spaceflight. She tries the comms again, not expecting an answer. "Ark, this is Clarke Griffin, do you read me?"

Silence, and static. The same answer she's had for six years. Apparently she's going to have to knock.

The hangar bay door slides silently open at the remote code, to her great relief—piloting a shuttle is one thing, but a spacewalk is a whole other level of dangerous—and clumsily, cautiously, she guides the ship through on the bare minimum of thrusters, setting her down with a bang as the ship drops the last few inches. 

Madi hops up and down in her seat, her cheer loud through the comlink. "We did it!"

"We did it," breathes Clarke, half in disbelief. Even with her focus on getting them in safely, she hadn't missed the pod from Becca's lab. Whatever else happened afterwards, the others made it here safely. But there are a million other things that might have gone wrong. 

The light from the open hangar bay dims as the great door slides shut again, and only when she's confident that it's sealed does she unstrap herself. "Gravity is working," she says. Madi reaches for her helmet. "Hey, no, wait—not yet. I'll go out and check first."

Madi slumps back in her seat, impatient. " _Fine_. But hurry!"

"Yeah, yeah. Anyone would think you'd been stuck with just me for six years," she grumbles. Madi just shoos her away, her body swamped in the suit.

Clarke lowers the ramp, her heart thumping an excited, terrified rhythm. If she throws up in this suit, it's going to really suck, so she gets hold of herself and steps carefully down, weighted by the heavy boots. At the bottom, she turns to look up at the ship, strangely grateful to it, and to the people who brought it, although they're probably not going to appreciate her gratitude... and she's procrastinating, because she's got a thousand questions, and she's afraid of the answers.

Madi's voice sounds in her ears, sounding oddly close over the comlink. "Clarke. Someone's coming."

She turns fast—and freezes.

Because that's _Bellamy._ Bellamy hurrying towards her, like he already knows.

Her fingers are clumsy as she tries to get the helmet off, it takes her three tries to get the catch undone, and then she tugs it off and lets it drop to the floor, forgotten, as he comes to an abrupt halt in front of her. 

He's pale with shock, freckles standing out starkly on his skin, and his eyes are wide and dark. He looks like he's on the verge of passing out. His mouth works silently for a moment, until he finally manages an incredulous, " _Clarke_?"

And that's all the answers she needs. She's been holding it together for six long years, and she can finally let go.

When she gets a grip on her emotions long enough to raise her head from where she's buried it against his chest, to offer him a lift home, Bellamy goes a little wild-eyed—and kisses her.

She barely has a moment to enjoy it before he lifts his head, face flushed. "Sorry, that was—"

But she's absolutely done with not kissing him, so she slides a hand into his hair, and pulls him back down. After a moment of stunned inaction, he groans and opens his mouth against hers, sinking into her as the kiss rockets straight for inappropriate-in-front-of-their-friends-and-her-kid territory.

It's the thought of Madi that finally penetrates the haze in her brain, and she pulls back, just enough to make him realize that they should put this on hold for now, and not that they should actually stop or anything ridiculous like that. To make sure he really gets the message, she nuzzles her nose against his, moving down until she can bury her face in the crook of his neck, and breathe in the familiar smell of him. She plants a kiss on his throat, because she can't quite stop kissing him yet, and he shivers. He's breathing fast and unsteadily, and she's finding it hard to think straight. All she wants to do is curl up with him and kiss him forever.

"God, Clarke... I thought—I thought you were _dead_."

The naked emotion in his voice makes her arms tighten automatically. "The nightblood worked. I was pretty sick for a while, but then I got better, just like Luna. I tried to contact you," she adds, trying not to sound accusative, but he still winces.

"We had a choice: fix the comms or fix the ship," he explains. Then he glances up at the ship behind her. "Although if I'd known there were alternatives..."

"Yeah, it came as a surprise to me, too."

He shakes his head, temporarily dismissing the question of how she managed to acquire transportation. "The bunker? Octavia?"

"I haven’t been able to clear the rubble yet. The entire tower collapsed on top of them, and it took me months just to figure out where to start looking. They're probably okay," she adds, quickly. "I haven't heard from them, but that doesn't necessarily mean—everything got pretty fried at the end. We know they got in there safely, and the bunker was purpose-built for this exact situation, so..."

"Yeah." Speculation is pointless when they can just go back to Earth and find out. "Jesus, Clarke, you were alone for _six years_?"

"Actually, no." She glances over his shoulder, smiling as she meets Monty's eyes. He's hanging back, not wanting to intrude. It's even good to see Murphy behind him. "It's a long story," she says, reluctantly dragging herself away from Bellamy so she can push back to her feet, holding out her hand to him. "Come on, there's someone I want you to meet."


End file.
